Last night I went to the premiere of Makers. Makers is a documentary about the American women’s movement. It’s also a video library that hopes to be the largest video library of women’s stories ever collected.

Spending the night hanging out with bad-ass feminists, including Vanessa, Courtney and Chloe, listening to Gloria Steinem talk about feminism, then and now, reassured me. It confirmed that we, the Feministing community, have helped to keep generations of feminism alive–growing, evolving and staying relevant. It felt good.

As Steinem said in conclusion to her speech at the screening quoting Paula Gunn Allen, “The root of oppression is the loss of memory.”

The event and screening was a nice reminder–we write and document because we can’t forget how awesome we’ve been.

Recently, much to my confused delight, I found myself perched on a washing machine being energetically fingered by a human male.

Well! This was an interesting (and enthusiastically consented-to) state of affairs, not least of all because

I am a lesbian (okay, okay, I’m bisexual, but as my hilarious and beautiful freshman roommate says, “Reina. Men will not try to have sex with you if they read you calling yourself a lesbian in print.” To which I say: The creepy ones will!), and
I was on a washing machine.

Even more interesting: This particular human male had read a piece of mine on sexual ethics, hookup culture, and vulnerability, and he had some questions.

Namely: Why on earth would you talk to a chick you fucked ...

Recently, much to my confused delight, I found myself perched on a washing machine being energetically fingered by a human male.

Well! This was an interesting (and enthusiastically consented-to) state of affairs, not least of all because

There’s much ado about “choice feminism” lately and some of it surely a bit of healthy autocriticism. If feminism means anything, after all, then it means nothing.

“Choice feminism” — the idea that feminism means women can individually choose whatever they wish and consider it an inherently feminist act — is certainly an insidious outgrowth of the commodification of empowerment. “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” has come a long way, branching out into various manifestations of neo-”girl power” and pseudo-feminism promulgated by corporations like Unilever in its many Dove commercials, as well as adverts for makeup and shampoo that seem to subtly sell empowerment as well as a greasy bit of beauty product.

Feminist criticism of choice rhetoric could focus on ...

There’s much ado about “choice feminism” lately and some of it surely a bit of healthy autocriticism. If feminism means anything, after all, then it means nothing.

Avengers: Age of Ultron opens today in the US; it’s already been released in a number of other countries. The movie’s posed to smash a ton of box office records – it’s going to be seen by an absurd number of people, more than your typical Big Pop Culture Thing. So as feminists we should probably talk about the movie’s rape joke.

The throwaway joke comes during a party early on in the movie when members of the Avengers try to lift Thor’s hammer (a longstanding theme in the comics). The scene’s obviously all about proving “manliness” – it’s not exactly subtle.

A version of this scene was released back in October in which Tony Stark says ...

Avengers: Age of Ultron opens today in the US; it’s already been released in a number of other countries. The movie’s posed to smash a ton of box office records – it’s going to be seen by ...